Chris Bishop’s first foray into the online world came in his teens when he set up an alternative website for fans of his local team, Bolton Wanderers. By 17 he ran a media empire of sports websites from his bedroom, and routinely won advertising contracts; the biggest a lucrative five-figure online campaign with Hyundai on one site.
Early success as a media publisher led Chris to study and graduate with an Ebusiness degree, the first of its kind at the UK from the University of Central Lancashire.
As part of the course, Bishop worked a placement year at Johnson & Johnson – in the company’s first Ebusiness role – where Chris built good contacts with both Google and TradeDoubler; the latter offering the 22 year old a role.
Within TradeDoubler’s account management team, Bishop was positioned amongst employees showing early prowess in a blossoming industry- with an alumni including the Founders of Spotify. Bishop worked on premier accounts, including Apple, RBS, LOVEFiLM, and Littlewoods.
His need to accrue more knowledge of online from new perspectives and wider angles was satisfied in a new role as Online Marketing Manager for Hotel Chocolat, where he was tasked with setting up full Ecommerce operations including acquisition channels and CRM. He was ultimately responsible for setting up all facets of the Ecommerce strategy and recorded impressive 400% sales growth.
He was fast becoming an authority in the emerging affiliate marketing industry in his own right, picking up a 2007 Commission Junction Europe personal award for “Outstanding Personal Contribution to Affiliate Marketing”.
A speech at the Internet Retailing London event and Bishop hit the radar of House of Fraser, who had eyes on someone to head up their own Ecommerce department. By the age of 25, Chris Bishop had been poached to head up the
Ecommerce acquistion for House of Fraser and its subsequent brands.
Bishop was brought in to set up and scale the department store’s Ecommerce channels for affiliate, PPC, and SEO whilst ensuring brands within House of Fraser were controlled correctly within these marketing channels.
He excelled in the consultative approach for the brands within – including Diesel, Ted Baker, Ralph Lauren & Hugo Boss – which led Chris, at 26, to establish his own agency.
During uncertain financial times with no external investment, 7thingsmedia was born in April 2009. The early days spent installing sound business practice and solidifying a talented staff base of digital leaders and high calibre graduates – all in the context of recession
Ever entrepreneurial, Bishop and 7thingsmedia have identified key gaps in the mid-tier online service market they have on-board talent to plug, delivering significant sales growth for multichannel retailers who previously had little understanding of the digital landscape, or were working with agencies unable to unlock their full potential.
Major brands have become attached to Bishop’s consultancy and skilful execution with some powerful case studies; USC affiliate sales up 851% in their first year, Ideal World PPC 256% sales increase in their first term with Bishop’s agency and finally Ted Baker achieving the same sales in one affiliate day in 2011 – with Bishop’s strategy and support – as they did in the whole of 2009 – without.
As CEO of 7thingsmedia, Chris is responsible for the company’s growth and remains instrumental in not only the daily upkeep of the business and its standards, but in acquiring the new clients, contacts, and partnerships that maintains and grows profit and staff numbers in both London and Bishop’s US surroundings in Madison Avenue, New York.
Bishop’s creative involvement in the agency remains strong and is clearly evident as he devised, developed and launched 7thingsmedia’s own patented software: Affiliate Manager Plus – an affiliate analytical dashboard primarily to service clients, trend from a multitude of data, and to improve agency efficiencies.
Awards and accolades bearing the name 7thingsmedia and Chris Bishop are testament to the unbridled progress and drive of its founder. 7thingsmedia won the Award “Best Agency” at the 2011 Performance Marketing Awards and retained the “Best Agency” titled in 2012, while Chris himself was named in the VOGUE 100 Most Influential People in Fashionand in 2012 was awarded “Marketer of the Year” by The Drum Awards.
As lecturer and industry blogger for Econsultancy, Chris trains the next generation of digital gurus, helping write the best-practice guides that set and sustain industry standards.
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